No Grey Area Here

Get ready, this is going to be one of those deep thought type posts, but I'll try to keep it brief and fun.

I've been loving Instagram (you can find me @rubybluequilts) and the other day I posted a shot of these feathers that I had finished quilting.

Now, I've tried quilting feathers several different ways and the way I like the best is to just go for it without drawing a spine or quilting one first. I just sew from side to side and the spine comes about as I quilt.

Many people left comments about how they've never tried that before. They like the spine because they know where they need to go. My little blurb under my picture said I hate drawing the spine because it reminds me of people telling you to color inside the lines. This is quilting, there ARE NO RULES!!!

So, with all of that said, it got me to thinking...

When I quilt I am either super creative or super organized. There's no grey area. Now, I can do both at the same time in a project, but it's all one or the other, no compromise. I was telling this theory to a friend yesterday and she explained it as either OCD or ADD with quilting.

I know several people that have more of a mathematical or engineering background that tend to fall in the super organized category. They are precise and rip out stitches if the seam is off by two or three thread (yes threads, ick!) and they are very good at what they do.

But then I know several people that live in the colorful "throw everything together and make it work" world where their piecing may not be perfect everytime and that's good as gold to them. They're not afraid to take chances and try something new, but they are also very good at what they do.

I think I live in both of these worlds. My stash is ridiculously organized (or getting there) but I'm not afraid to pull whatever I can get my hands on and make a quilt. I like to piece and cut precisely, but if things get off a bit, no worries. I'm human. I stay up way too late and quilt before coffee some mornings and if I need to rip something out, it's not the end of the world. I never thought about it before, but I wouldn't change a thing. I like the precision that lets me do math and create new patterns, but I love my creative side that can actually visualize and play.

So, where do you think you fall in? Are you more precise or more creative? And please do not for a second think that I'm saying creative people aren't precise and vice versa. It's just much harder for a precise person to tackle a mystery quilt or an art quilt and a creative person would be bored in about 5 minutes after a much planned quilt (typically). Or, is there some component that I'm missing? Let me know where you fall in and let's celebrate that we all do this thing we love, but are able to do it in our own way!

Getting Organized

It's no secret I have a very hard time some days finding the balance between work, home and fun. Even harder, I have a hard time distinguishing which projects to work on first, my deadlines or my clients? 

Well after reading a zillion organization blog posts and pins on Pinterest, I think I came up with a simple solution that seems to be working and I wanted to share it with you. 

This is it! My new idea. It's a dry erase board calendar and some magnets. That's it. 

I've read about keeping lists and trying to stick to a schedule, but my schedule changes everyday or week and my list can be a mile long some days. I've also read about picking your top three goals to tackle for the day so that super long list isn't so daunting. But there's those few things I need to do every week too. 

So here's the plan:

Pink magnets are for working out. I'd like to workout 3-4 times per week, but I have a fifth if I get extra motivated. I don't want to do it any more than that because that's how I've injured myself in the past. 

Green magnets are for long arm quilting. Once again, there's only 5 magnets so I can't quilt 7 days a week anymore. But I'd also like to limit this number too. 

Black magnets are for office work which includes edits, paperwork, blogging, etc. 

Purple magnets are for cleaning. 

Teal edits are for sewing for my own projects. I may need to get more of these :)

And finally blue magnets are for rewards. This includes going out to dinner, watching a movie, spending time with friends and family. Going to a Luke Bryan concert :) sadly I forgot to take some me time in the past, not now. I'm happy to report I used all of these this week and needed more :)

I was trying to think of how I could incorporate all of these ideas into something that actually worked for me. The dry erase calendar is perfect. I have a space for each day of the week for working out and I know I only need to fill that space 3-4 times. That leaves 4 other spots for other tasks for the day. I would like to hit three each day, but if I hit a fourth, all the better. But if I only hit 2 in a day, I can see everything I've done in the rest of the week and then it's not all bad. 

Plus I keep all of the magnets to the side as I need them so I can see exactly what I have left to do. I'm such a visual person and so far this has been great. 

I also have my to-do list off to the side for my sewing projects and deadlines so I know what I need to tackle first when I get to paperwork or sew or edit. So far it's working and I've gotten a ton of stuff done even with watching a few movies and going to see some concerts this week. 

It's amazing what you can do when you're organized and waste less time figuring out what to do and just do it. 

The only issue I've had is keeping this calendar up. The magnets I have are glass so they weigh a bit. The calendar only came with permanent 3m strips to hang it and I'm not ready to make this a permanent fixture on a wall. I tried using other magnetic strips and they are still on the side of my filing cabinet, but the adhesive isn't that great and the calendar and magnets went flying one morning. I'm still missing one somewhere...

Anywho, I just wanted to share what I finally found has been working for me. I have a schedule (kinda) but it's flexible since I don't do the same thing every day or from week to week. 

Let me know what you think of my plan and maybe it could work for you. If you have any questions or suggestions of other ideas to try, please leave me a comment below! Have a great day, be back soon with quilt pictures!